Where I Stood
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day five hundred and fifty-two: He thought he was fine, until the day he saw that ring on Quinn's finger.


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 26th cycle. Now cycle 27!_

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><p><strong>"Where I Stood"<br>Puck/Quinn **

It wasn't a new feeling to him, not anymore… he really wished it didn't exist at all. But after he had come out of juvenile detention, it had started to dawn on him how much he had lost. It wasn't even that he had only just lost it, no… It'd been a while and either he hadn't noticed, or the others hadn't, or… The way he felt though, it was very clear, at least to him, that people didn't care about him the way he would have hoped they did. And maybe he hadn't exactly made it easy for them, but why should he? Still now the things he had lost or not been able to hang to, one might say, were feeling so much more evident to him. The most obvious one, to him, remained once again his failure when it had come to Quinn. He could act all he wanted like it didn't bother him, but it did, of course it did. He knew why things hadn't worked out for them, or at least he was fairly sure he thought he knew, and he in no way blamed her for this.

Except it didn't change the fact that they still lived in the same town, still went to the places they used to, still went to the same school, and still belonged to the same Glee Club, so he had no hope if he could ever wish to put distance between them. He tried, and he could tell she tried, too, but they could only be successful to a point. And then… well, there was Sam.

He didn't have too much of a problem with her dating him, in that he could tell he was a good guy, and he made her happy. After everything he'd put her through, Puck could handle that. What remained to be seen was how far his tolerance would go, if there might be something that would tip the scales and make him wish he could put himself back ahead of Sam in Quinn's heart…

He was already feeling like he'd been made absolutely useless, as he was left unable to act on Kurt's behalf against Karofsky, for fear of ending up back in juvie. The others would understand that, sure, but that didn't change the fact that he was powerless. It was because of his own actions that he had ended up there, still… Now it was becoming like he was back with them but he wasn't really completely back, because part of him still belonged to that place he'd been sent to.

Then something happened. It was after the Burt Hummel/Carole Hudson wedding, and everyone was back at McKinley. He had just gone into class, taking his usual seat, strategically out of the way to permit him certain nap privileges. Out of the corner of his eye he had seen Quinn come in. She took her own seat, somewhere to the left and ahead of him. He made his usual play of readjusting his position in his seat, the better to give him an opportunity to sneak a glance at her. It had happened maybe once or twice that she would catch him doing this, at which point he did his very best to cover and look away.

She didn't catch him on that day, but for his part he was the one to catch sight of something out of the ordinary. He sat up, straining to see. It had just so happened that the sun had hit at exactly the right time to catch what little sparkle the thing had… It was a ring… on her finger, on…

No, she couldn't be engaged, could she? There was no way. Forget the fact that they were still in high school, and Evans wasn't that stupid, she wouldn't do it… He couldn't pretend to know every last thing she would do, because if he did then things might have gone so different between them, but even as people who could claim they knew Quinn Fabray, he was pretty high up there on the list, and she wouldn't be engaged. So it had to be something else.

He wouldn't find out just what was going on, not right away. The rest of the class went on, and they got out. As they went, Puck managed to catch up with her, fall in step with her.

"Are congratulations in order?" he asked her, and she startled, realizing he was there. Once she got over that and she found her way back to his question, she looked down and figured out what he was getting at. Instinctively she held her hand up, looking at the ring.

"What's it to you?" she shook her head.

"I'm just curious," he shrugged. "I still haven't returned my tux to the shop, so I could hang on to it if I need to, but you'd need to…"

"I'm not getting married," she clarified.

"It's not one of those purity rings, is it?"

"It's a promise ring," she finally answered, not wanting this questioning to drag on for an eternity. "Sam gave it to me," she explained.

"Oh…" was his answer.

"I'll see you in Glee Club," she shook her head and moved off, slipping into the girls' bathroom. So that was that. Once she was gone, he just… stopped.

A promise ring… He hadn't realized things were getting so serious between her and Sam. And then what did it mean for them? Well, not a whole lot, where she was concerned, apparently. He knew this was going to happen, sure, but seeing this now, realizing how things had progressed, he was starting to understand a couple of things.

He understood that things were actually progressing, evolving… She was making a new life for herself, after him… without him. And as hard as it was, there wasn't much of an option beyond letting her carry on with it.

Except then there was the other thing he understood, and this one was the one that actually hurt. He understood how much this sense of loss, of missing something, would never leave him. Even now, with time passing, with them moving on, realizing that they were growing further apart, it still hurt. He could tell himself he was happy for her, as much as he wanted, but… well-wishes did not erase pain.

THE END

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><p><strong>AN: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.  
><strong>**In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are  
><strong>********always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!********


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